“There is the thought of human beings as a great stream – everybody wants to go on – and in that stream the thought of you remains. And when the medium calls upon you, you manifest, out of that stream, because you are still there, still there in your daily life, because you are still pursuing the same thing that every human being is pursuing – security, permanency, ‘me’ and ‘not me’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, this constant concern with yourself in that stream in which all human beings are caught. When you die your thought of yourself goes on in that stream as it is going on now – as a Christian, Buddhist, whatever you please – greedy, envious, ambitious, frightened, pursuing pleasure – that is this human stream in which you are caught. Unless you step out of it now, you will go on in that stream – obviously. Can the mind step out of that and face complete impermanency, now?”
“Death is total nothingness. It must be there for out of that, life is, love is. For in this nothingness creation is. Without absolute death, there’s no creation.”
“Death and love always go together; they never separate. You can’t love without death; you can’t embrace without death being there. Where love is there is also death, they are inseparable.”
“There is no creation if death does not sweep away all the things that the brain has put together to safeguard the self-centred existence.”
“Death is the flowering of the new; meditation is the dying of the known.”
“Freedom from the known is the ending of thought; to die to thought, from moment to moment, is to be free from the known. it is this death that puts an end to decay.”
“Thought cannot go beyond itself; it may function in narrow or wide fields but it will always be within the limitations of memory and memory is always limited. Memory must die psychologically, inwardly, but function only outwardly. Inwardly, there must be death and outwardly sensitivity to every challenge and response. The inward concern of thought prevents action.“
– J. Krishnamurti
The constant psychological activity of human beings creates a flow of consciousness which Krishnamurti refers to as stream of consciousness, stream of selfishness or stream of sorrow as it is basically self-centred and leads to suffering. Human beings are born in this stream; they live a life of this stream and die in this stream. The search for happiness within this stream is futile. Is it possible to step out of this stream? Can a human being who is a product of this stream step out of it? What is the nature of this stream and what does ‘stepping out’ mean? Can a product of this stream step out of it? The question of death is closely related to this stepping out. Physical death ends only the physical things. But the psychological content continues as part of this stream. It is only a psychological death that can end the psychological content. What is psychological death? Can one die to a psychological reaction? What is the nature of death and its significance? How do living and dying go together? How are death, love and creation related? What happens after physical death? What is reincarnation? What is it that reincarnates? Is it possible psychologically to reincarnate now? Is there continuity after death? What is it that continues? All such and many more related questions will be explored during this workshop. Understanding the significance of death while still being alive and its relation with stepping out of the stream will be the intent of this workshop. It is expected that the participants will at least understand the place of psychological death in day-to-day life and no longer be afraid of it. Various selections from Krishnamurti’s works relevant to the theme of this workshop will be provided as a reading material to each participant. Also links to the relevant videos of Krishnamurti will be provided. Each participant is expected to devote these two days fully to the study in order to benefit maximum from this workshop.